READIN

Following up on the spelling post below -- I wonder what Sylvia's understanding of "spelling" a word is... My impulse is almost to think that it is purely a collection of sounds, poetry without meaning. I mean, let's say she knows how to say "N O spells No" -- I am pretty sure that started out as just a sound pattern. But let's say she later puts the "N" and "O" magnets next to each other on the refrigerator door, points at it and says, "spells No!" This happened sometime last week, and at this point I think it is pretty clear that the sentence "N O spells No" is a fully fledged semantic unit for Sylvia. Where does recitation shade over into meaning?

Update: Rereading this post, particularly the last sentence, I think it could easily lead in to a discussion of language along the lines of Jaynes in "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". I have no clear ideas at the moment of how to move the discussion in that direction; but if you have any such I would most appreciate if you could share them with me.

posted morning of Wednesday, July 9th, 2003
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